In the season 2 finale of “Sons Of Anarchy”, a song called “Hands In The Sky” from “Straylight Run” was being played. And the perfect track just makes the scene even better.
Back in 2013, I came across 16 different videos on YouTube with a combined play count of 1,498,818. Spotify streams had the count as 110,507.
The songs was basically ignored, unknown.
In 2021, the Spotify count is at 5.07 million streams. Still nothing compared to the impact it made in the SOA scene.
And the song was released on an EP, called “Prepare To Be Wrong” from 2005. It took 8 years for me to hear it and the SOA episode I was watching was from Season 2 which came out in 2009.
In other words good music and TV shows will always be found.
My journey into the world of Parkway Drive started with “Reverence” in 2018 and backwards I went.
“Ire” came out in 2016. It’s their fifth album, but the second album I’d heard from em. It went to Number 1 on the Aussie Charts and the U.S Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums chart.
The band for the album is Winston McCall on lead vocals, Jeff Ling on lead guitar, Luke “Pig” Kilpatrick on rhythm guitar, Jia “Pie” O’Connor on bass and Ben “Gaz” Gordon on drums.
The label even invested in a vocal coach for Winston McCall to increase his melodic skills as he’s already well known for this guttural vocals.
From listening to “Reverence” first and going back to “Ire”, it’s safe to say that this album was the start of the Hard Rock and Classic Metal tunes this band fine tuned with “Reverence”.
This fusion of Nu-Metal, Thrash Metal, Classic Metal, Power Metal, Hard Rock ad Death Metal is not meant to go together and work, but it does and it works very well.
Destroyer
A repeating guitar lick starts the album. Its low, it build in intensity and it’s a lick that the crowd could sing-along with along with the “Destroy” vocal chant. But this section wouldn’t work without the rhythm and drum work. It’s thunderous and like a military march.
Once the main riff comes in, its melodic and heavy at the same time. If you grew up on a diet of hard rock, then this riff would fit the criteria.
Dying To Believe
Any song that starts with the lyric, “like dragging nails through my skin” is going to be fast and aggressive. And that’s exactly how it plays it in the blast beat intro.
Vice Grip
Sitting at 52.7 million streams on Spotify. The video clip on YouTube has 23 million views.
Another sing-along guitar riff to start the song and a Chorus you can chant along to with the “Yeah, yeah, yeah” vocals.
Musically, it’s a hard rock song and I’m picking up the guitar after I finish this post to learn it.
There is a “Rise” chant section, which reminds me of the “Die” section from “Creeping Death”.
Crushed
Religious chants give way to “tear the throat box out” vocals and riffs which are too good to not listen to regardless of your preference for vocal styles.
The section from the 40 second mark to 1.01. Press play for that, just to hear how the religious chants work with heavy music.
Or stick around from 3.26 onwards, just to hear the guitar melody under the vocals which could have come from an Iron Maiden album.
But the overall style of the track is Nu-Metal. Weird I know, but it works.
Fractures
The riffs remind me so much of the 80’s and Pantera’s first two albums.
But press play for the Chorus guitar melodies and “wooahs”.
Check out the section from 3.30 as it slows down and then builds back up. As soon as the guitar lead lets loose for the last 30 seconds of the song, someone decided to fade out the song. Nooooo.
Writings On The Wall
The drum groove is like “We Will Rock You”, so you hear McCall carrying the vocal over a bed of ominous piano notes, synths, bass and abstract guitar lines.
“Put your hands up, put your hands up, we’ll fight until we die, this ain’t ever gonna stop”, whispers McCall in true spirit of the 80’s ethos like “Stand Up And Shout”, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “Bang Your Head”.
Then at 2.30, the song kicks in with some metal like riffage.
At 2.55, my favourite melodic riff from the album kicks in. And the song ends with the haunting piano lines heard throughout the song.
Bottom Feeder
There are so many riffs that people will class as hair metal in this song. But it’s all Metal to me. It’s one of the heaviest tracks and catchiest.
The Sound Of Violence
The intro riff gets me to pay attention and the breakdown Chorus would work well in the live arena.
Vicious
Musically, this song has some serious hard rock cred. Even Metallica “Black” album era.
Dedicated
I feel like I’m listening to a Killswitch Engage tune on this.
Stick around for the breakdown at the end.
A Deathless Song
Acoustic guitars with a fusion of flamenco vibes and baroque start the song. But at 0.44, those iconic sing-along melodic leads kick in.
And those melodic sing-along leads are heard throughout the song, especially in the last minute outro, as they give way to the same riffs, but played with violins.
In the end it’s a “hard core hard rock” album, Somehow it makes perfect sense.
“Rage for Order” is the second album by Queensrÿche, released on June 27, 1986.
The Queensryche Cyber Army are really good at keeping the bands Wikipedia pages up to date and super detailed. Everything that can be found on the a internet is included along with print media and newspaper articles.
Go to the Wikipedia page on this album and you’ll get heaps of information.
MTV was becoming a huge promotions vehicle for artists and 1986 was clearly becoming the last year that bands would experiment with the songwriting. After 1986, albums would become very MTV Friendly because all the artists wanted a piece of that pie.
Musically it’s an excellent album. Each song has a riff or a vocal melody that I like. From a song point of view, “Walk In The Shadows” is close to perfect.
Lyrically the album touches on subject matters I’m interested in, like government intrusion and corruption, technology and social issues.
Management and the Label must have felt threatened at the experimental progressive album delivered by the band, so it’s no surprise that there is a cover song, which then became the lead single.
And no one knew how to handle Queensryche.
They had opening spots with Ratt and Bon Jovi (seriously, what the….), AC/DC (good gig to have if you play similar styles but they are very different styles) and maybe the most compatible one in relation to “Metal”, Ozzy Osbourne.
The Tri-Ryche logo makes it’s first appearance as well.
I never understood how this album was ever labeled as a “glam metal” album, but the label had to make them fit somewhere along with some questionable clothing and hairspray.
Queensrÿche is the classic line up of Geoff Tate on vocals, Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton on guitars, Eddie Jackson on bass and Scott Rockenfield on drums.
Neil Kernon is Producing, Engineering and Mixing. Man of many hats.
Walk In The Shadows
Written by Chris DeGarmo, Geoff Tate and Michael Wilton.
It’s as good as anything that came from “Operation Mindcrime” and “Empire”.
I’m a big fan of the Intro riff (it’s great to play) and that Chorus is massive.
I Dream in Infrared
Written by Tate and Wilton.
It reminds me of Rush in the Intro and I feel like Crimson Glory took this song and used it as a foundation to build on.
But you need to press play on this for the acoustic guitar arpeggios and the haunting vocal melody from Tate in the verses.
Is it just me or does this track remind you of “Breaking the Silence” and “Waiting for 22” from the “Mindcrime” album?
The Whisper
Written solely by DeGarmo and the Celtic inspired Intro definitely gets me interested. Something that Maiden would use a lot in the Dickinson Part 2 era.
The whole song is what Metal should sound like.
Gonna Get Close to You
A Dalbello cover, although I didn’t know it at the time.
To cover a song from outside the genre you are classified in, is a sign of respect to the artist who wrote it.
Many years later, Lisa Dalbello would do guest vocals on Alex Lifeson’s “Victor” album.
Check out the way the verses are constructed, it feels ominous.
The Killing Words
Written by DeGarmo and Tate.
The keyboard Intro gives way to the guitar, before it goes into a soundtrack like verse. It’s very Marillion like and the vocals remind me of Fish and I like it.
But you’ll be pressing play to this song, for the section when Tate sings “Over”.
Surgical Strike
Written by DeGarmo and Wilton it feels more like a cut from “The Warning”.
And there are sections here which remind of “Speak” and “The Needle Lies”.
Press play for the Outro that begins from 2.40. You won’t be disappointed.
Neue Regel
Written by DeGarmo and Tate.
When I heard “A Perfect Circle” for the first time, I thought of this song. It has all of those atmospheric elements and outside the box sounds and composition elements.
This is how progressive music should sound like and it’s the embryo of what the “Promised Land” album would be.
But press play on this just to hear the power of Geoff Tate.
Chemical Youth (We Are Rebellion)
Written by Tate and Wilton, who brings the heavy metal riffs to the rebellion.
It’s put together in a progressive way as it doesn’t just follow the standard verse and chorus narrative.
London
Written by DeGarmo, Tate and Wilton and it reminds me of the “Mindcrime” album musically and the song “I Don’t Believe In Love”.
It’s got a great Chorus, so press play to hear “London” sound like “Young Boy”.
And then hang around for the harmonies and individual lead breaks.
Screaming in Digital
Written by DeGarmo, Tate and Wilton, musically it also reminds me of different songs from the “Mindcrime” album.
The electronic synths are dominant and Tate is very Peter Gabriel like in the verses.
But press play for the vocal melodies from 2.15 to 2.40 and stick around for the guitar hero lead breaks. And then those unbelievable vocal melodies come back.
I Will Remember
Written by DeGarmo, it has some nice acoustic playing from DeGarmo, a sign of things to come.
It was Certified Gold in the U.S.
To this Australian, it’s a criminally underrated jewel that was way ahead of its time and no one really knew what to do with it.
And I’m not sure if Marillion was an influence to the band at this point in time but goddamn this album reminds me so much of “Script for a Jester’s Tear”. Maybe it’s the similarities in vocal styles between Fish and Tate.
Anyway press play and let the sounds of love, politics and technology wash over you.
“Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?” was released on September 19, 1986.
Edward J. Repka as the cover illustrator is the rock star here. While the concept design is listed as coming from Dave Mustaine and Andy Somers, its Repka who brought the concept to life.
There is Vic Rattlehead, portrayed as a real estate salesman, in front of a desolated United Nations Headquarters with fighter jets in the sky and frayed flags still on the poles.
Brilliant.
The band for this album is the same as the debut, with Dave Mustaine on guitars and lead vocals, David Ellefson on bass, Chris Poland on guitars and Gar Samuelson on drums.
The album is produced by Mustaine but Casey McMackin as the engineer also deserves credit as he was involved with mixing or engineering quite a few albums from the California Thrash Metal scene, for bands like Vio-Lence, Saint Vitus, Nuclear Assault, Zoetrope, Dark Angel and Flotsam and Jetsam. And in the 90’s he did “1916” and “March or Die” by Motorhead. Mixing was done by Paul Lani and Stan Katayama but there’s a story in that as well.
The album was troubled due to the high level of drug abuse. Mustaine and Ellefson were already heavy users, however Samuelson and Poland were said to be even more extreme, something which Poland has disputed to say that what he did was nothing different to what other people were doing at the time. Regardless of the differing point of views, Samuelson and Poland got fired after the promotional tour for this album.
Another issue was the record label. The project started with Combat Records, resulting in the original mix of the album and a co-production by Randy Burns, however Capital Records then purchased the rights to the album (and the band) and got Paul Lani to remix it himself. Lani was more of a Pop Rock mixer, so he knew how the album should sound to get favourable MTV and Radio treatment. And it got that attention as well.
All songs are written and composed by Dave Mustaine, except “I Ain’t Superstitious” by Willie Dixon.
“Wake Up Dead”
The film clip got me interested. It was the steel cage and the chaos around it, with people climbing all over it towards the end. It was dystopian and unsettling and I loved it.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Mustaine’s voice to begin with, but man, the music had me hooked. There was just so much guitar playing to unpack and learn.
Like the head banging riff that plays between 1.10 to 1.40. Or the blistering super-fast picked riff between 2.03 and 2.26. Or the change in groove in tempo from 2.42 with the unorthodox solo from Chris Poland combining exotic lines with fast jazz chromatic lines.
And there wasn’t much singing in this “single” like the hard rock singles I was growing up with. Actually I think all up there are about 8 lines as those lyrics describe Mustaine cheating on his current partner however he stayed with her because he was homeless at the time and needed a place to stay. But he had to leave her because he thought she had intentions to kill him.
“The Conjuring”
The song is about black magic and contains instructions for hexes.
The intro is ominous but it’s the fast riff from 0.57 which I like while Chris Poland moves in with another atonal solo, making sharps and flats fit chords they shouldn’t fit.
Check out the galloping and progressive riff between 1.43 and 1.58. A favourite and so fun to play. Or the fast riffs from 2.36 to 2.57 and then my favourite foot stomping, head banging riff in the song from 2.58 to 3.29.
And Mustaine is not working within a Verse and Chorus structure. Until the next song.
“Peace Sells”
It’s iconic, musically and lyrically.
The bass intro sets the tone. Even though Ellefson plays it, Mustaine wrote it.
The “No More Mr Nice Guy” vocal delivery over a riff that Mr Hetfield would use for the “Enter Sandman” verses is excellent. Then again, the E pedal point with a F chord chucked in was a staple of thrash metal music and Mustaine’s favourite band “Diamond Head”.
The Motorhead inspired outro from 2.20 is where it’s at. It’s fast, its unrelenting and Mustaine’s war cry of “Peace Sells But Who’s Buying” echoes the great work to come, especially in the track “Holy Wars” from “Rust In Peace” a few years later.
I like the lyric “What do you mean, I don’t support your system? I go to court when I have too”
Its clever.
And the best summary of the song is the way Mustaine put it on a VH1 doco; “peace is something we all want, but nobody wants to give up stuff.”
“Devil’s Island”
Mustaine takes some of his riffs from his Metallica days and re-uses em here as the intro reminds me of a section in the song “Phantom Lord”. He also used a similar riff in “This Was My Life” from the “Countdown To Extinction”.
But my favourite riff is the Chorus riff. Check it out.
Another great riff is from 2.22 to 2.43.
The title is a reference to a former French penal colony off the coast of French Guiana. The lyrics detail the thoughts of a condemned prisoner awaiting execution. He is spared by God, but must spend the rest of his life on the island.
“Good Mourning/Black Friday”
Side 2 begins with this.
“Good Mourning” begins with a clean tone acoustic guitar begins. Its haunting.
And some serious shred is heard as the song transitions from “Good Mourning” to “Black Friday”.
How good is the musical groove and feel from 1.48 to 2.23?
“Bad Omen”
Another ominous like intro with arpeggios as the song builds into a thrasher from when the fast bass riff begins at 1.19. But it’s the groove metal riff at 1.36 which gets me interested to learn it.
The soloing from Chris Poland is so different to what I was used to. Very Jazz fusion like in the vein of Al DiMeola.
At 2.50 it goes into a supercharged neck breaking riff and some serious shredding.
“I Ain’t Superstitious”
Other artists did it, but I feel that Mustaine showed the metal community that you could cover songs that didn’t really come from the genre you are classed in and still make em sound like they are from the genre, like this blues funk song, suddenly sounds like a metal blues song.
From a reference point, “I Ain’t Superstitious” is written by Willie Dixon and originally recorded by Howlin’ Wolf in 1961.
“My Last Words”
Mustaine again showcases his arpeggio clean tone riff writing for a song about playing a game of Russian roulette.
The intro on this song is excellent. After the clean tone arpeggios and open string pull offs, it goes into a face melting riff.
But check out the riff from 3.10 to 3.25 and the solo after it. Even Lars Ulrich has given this track his tick of approval.
At 36 minutes long, Mustaine created an album that took hours and hours of learning in order to get the riffs and leads down. And from that, I became a fan of Megadeth.
“Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?” is very influential in the movement of technical thrash metal. Mustaine (if he hadn’t done so already) raised the bar here. Along with other thrash releases from Metallica and Slayer, future extreme metallers had a holy trinity of release for reference points.
From a commercial point of view, the use of the “Peace Sells” bass riff to introduce the MTV news segment, showed other thrash bands the commercial potential of thrash metal if done right. But MTV didn’t pay em, because they used the “fair use” defence which is why they cut off the music after a few seconds, as if they went past that timeframe, they would have to make payment.
Musicians who would go on to form Sweden’s Melodic Death metal scene have always referred to this album as an influence.
The album does have a Platinum certification for the U.S and Canada and a Silver certification for the U.K.
Someone said to me “Nothing matters except the result”.
Remember a time when a music business executive would say to an artist, nothing matters except the sales.
Shallow thinking.
Because the connection a fan makes with the music and the artist didn’t matter to them. The community built around the artist and their songs doesn’t matter. The community built around a scene doesn’t matter. The time spent away from loved ones doesn’t matter. The support of other artists, songwriters and families doesn’t matter. All the hours the artist spent in the dark to get to the light doesn’t matter.
Rather than treating the artist as an asset that companies should invest in, artists are seen as costs that should be minimised.
I covered “Out On The Streets” and “King Of The Fools” from the “Come Out And Play” album by Twisted Sister.
“Fight For Your Rights” by Motley Crue got a mention. It made me wonder how a band with so many addictions could get it together to churn out an album. “Theater of Pain” has a reputation as a “filler” album. But the album does have some “unfinished” deep cuts, like this song.
Who wrote the Bible?Who set the laws?
“Waiting For Darkness” from Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark At The Moon” was mentioned.
“That’s The Way I Wanna Rock ‘ N’ Roll” from AC/DC’s much maligned 1988 album “Blow Up Your Video” got a write up. It was released as a single, however “Heatseeker” was doing a decent job taking the limelight, that this little ditty was ignored.
“Young Lust” from Aerosmith is a favorite from the monster “Pump” album. Some monster songs stole all the glory like “Love In The Elevator”, “Janie’s Got A Gun”, “The Other Side” and “What It Takes”. So it’s easy for songs like “Young Lust” to be lost.
Check out Joey Kramer as he goes to town on the drums, with his double kick underpinning the groove and tempo of the song.
The controversial “One In A Million” from Guns N Roses got a write up.
I covered “Mine All Mine” from Van Halen. I know it was a single, but since the singles from “5150” were still on the airwaves along with “Jump” and “Panama”, it meant “Mine All Mine” just percolated outside the Van Hagar Halen hit factory.
The drumming is frantic, making a clichéd keyboard riff sound heavy as hell and how good is the guitar solo from EVH?
I covered some “forgotten” Whitesnake cuts from the “Slide It In” and “Slip Of The Tongue” album like “Standing In The Shadow”, “Guilty Of Love”, “Kittens Got Claws” and “Wings Of The Storm”.
“Rock Me To The Top” and “Before My Eyes” from Tesla got mentioned.
And Kiss has a lot of forgotten cuts like “Tomorrow”, “Naked City”, “Exciter”, “I’ve Had Enough”, “King Of The Mountain”, “My Way” and “Silver Spoon”.
“Had Enough” by Mr Big, “What’s It Gonna Be” from Ratt,Rock And Roll’s Gonna Save The World” by Y&T are included.
“Gutter Ballet”, “When The Crowds Are Gone”, “Hounds” and “Summer’s Rain” from Savatage are forgotten.
Does anyone remember “Metal Heart” from Accept?
“Downhearted”, “Reckless – Don’t Be So” and “The Boys Light Up” from Australian Crawl round out the list.
“Some people get into this business for the attention, they want the babes or the money or the Porsche, but when we first got together we didn’t know that this was going to become a business. We were just friends who wanted to jam.” – Chris DeGarmo (Queensryche founder, ex guitarist and main songwriter)
Be in it for the right reasons.
“The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.” – Eddie Van Halen
“To this day I don’t have a guitar idol. I have people who are my favorites.”– Randy Rhoads (RIP) Guitarist
It could be seen as a gimmick to mimic hard rock and heavy metal songs on cellos.
But it’s no gimmick.
Because what you hear are technical players playing the the vocal melody, the guitar leads, the main riffs and sometimes the drum beat.
“Plays Metallica by Four Cellos” is the debut album by Finnish metal band Apocalyptica, released in 1996. It features instrumental Metallica covers arranged and played on cellos.
The band was invited to record this album by a label employee after a 1995 show in which they performed some of the songs. The members were initially unsure and thought nobody would listen to such a record, but the employee insisted and they recorded it.
And people liked it, especially in Europe. In Finland it was certified Platinum and it was certified Gold in Germany and Poland.
Enter Sandman
When you hear the vocal melodies of James Hetfield shifted from a voice to a cello, you get to understand how musical Hetfield’s vocal melodies are.
Master Of Puppets
So many good sections in this.
The way they play the Verse and Pre-Chorus with the vocal melody is a must listen.
But you will be pressing play on this to listen to the solo sections as they move from the clean tone arpeggios to the fast sections. And that whole clean tone arpeggios section is very Ennio Morricone sounding, when played on the cellos. But I never thought that hearing it with the electrics.
Harvester Of Sorrow
Great sequencing to have these three tracks one after another. Imagine an album that had this three punch combo.
The slow metal groove on the original version is a favourite and the guys in Apocalyptica do it justice, especially the cello that becomes like the percussive drum.
The Unforgiven
This song was made to be played via orchestras and cellos however I don’t think that was the intention of Hetifeld and Co. Yes, you can hear some of those Ennio Morricone influences in the original cut that appeared on the “Black” album, but goddamn when you hear the track in this medium, it’s a soundtrack song to a Clint Eastwood Western.
The intro, the chorus and the solo sections are essential listening. You really get to hear the quality and melodicism of Metallica.
And the sequencing of these four tracks is perfect.
Sad But True
When I first heard this song, I heard a bone crushing heavy metal cut with a Kashmir like groove. But when you hear it with the cellos, you immediately pick up on the Ennio Morricone influence.
Creeping Death
The Verses and the Chorus played on the cellos along with the vocal melody is essential listening.
Then instead of repeating the Verse and Chorus, the Apocalyptica guys go straight into the excellent Hammett lead break and the Conan The Barbarian “Die” section.
Wherever I May Roam
The middle Eastern style intro suddenly sounds like a Genghis Khan Mongolian soundtrack when played through cellos.
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
This song was always going to work on cellos.
When the arpeggios start and Hammet’s lead begins in the Intro , its haunting and sad.
Basically if you like Metallica, you will like what Apocalyptica does here
After three weeks of zero posts it was James Durbin that got me out of the rut.
His first album dropped in 2011 and its a hard rock album. “Higher Than Heaven” is my favorite track. It’s melodic and heavy enough to rock and a co-write with James Michael and Marti Frederiksen.
Then album number 2 dropped in 2014 and it was not what I expected, more in line with the Imagine Dragons style of rock.
So I just moved on.
And then “The Road” came up on the New Release Playlist as I was driving.
I’d like to tell you that I knew it was Durbin on vocals just from hearing him, but I had to google it to find out. Hell I had to Google who was in that version of Quiet Riot.
Frankie Banali has been the drummer for the band since DuBrow reformed it in the 80s after the death of Rhoads. Bassist Chuck Wright replaced Rudy Sarzo and has been in and out of QR since the 80s. Guitarist Alex Grosso has been in a lot of hard rock bands and ended up in QR in 2006.
I wrote back in 2017 to go and listen to “The Road” first, then “Renegades” and “Freak Flag”. They are songs that should remain around for a lot longer. And I still stand by that but looking at Spotify, these songs doesn’t even rate in the Top 10.
Unfortunately this version of QR would record one more album. But, drama surrounded that release. Durbin left before it’s release and Banali went missing, only for the world to find out that he was dying from cancer.
But QR continues.
Johnny Kelly from Type O Negative and Danzig joins on drums. Jizzy Pearl is on vocals again. Alex Grossi remains on guitar and Rudy Sarzo has rejoined.
Young people today do not realise the impact that Twisted Sister had on the music business around 1984 and 1985. Sure, other bands had greater sales and bigger tours, however no one did MTV like Twisted Sister.
The “Because We Can” tour should of been renamed to “Because I Can”.
Richie Sambora didn’t show up to work but the show went on as JBJ had a replacement for Sambora on the same day.
Then Tico Torres undergoes emergency appendectomy surgery and the band POSTPONES their Mexico concert. This would have pissed the Jovi machine.
Then Tico fell ill again, but JBJ had a back up plan this time in New Jersey native and Kings Of Suburbia drummer Rich Scannella, who filled in until Tico was cleared to play.
The show must go on for JBJ as those super large merchandise deals means that the tour cannot stop. Merchandise deals become very expensive to the artist if they are broken or if the sales do not meet targets or if the promised shows are not delivered. Just ask Dee Snider.
It was almost September 24, 2013 and the new self titled Dream Theater album would be “officially” released on Roadrunner.
Going back a few more years, on September 13, 2011, “A Dramatic Turn Of Events” was released and it had 35,750 units sold in the first week.
With Roadrunner putting a lot of money into Dream Theater, they would want the above figures to increase by at least 20% but the market at that point in time was showing a shrinkage in sales compared to two years ago, due to licensed streaming.
But as album sales went down, concert attendances went up as well as ticket prices.
“MOTLEY STILL SINGERLESS” is the headline from a news break item that did the rounds in an issue of Hot Metal from June 1992.
For anyone who wasn’t aware, Motley Crue and Vince Neil parted ways in February 1992. The actual argument took place on February 11, 1992, with Motley Crue issuing the official statement on Neil’s departure on February 14, 1992.
The Crue wanted everyone to believe that they started working with John Corabi immediately, from as earliest as February 17, 1992, however it wasn’t until September 27, 1992, that John Corabi officially signed a contract to be Motley Crue’s new lead vocalist.
Sebastian Bach’s claimed that he did in fact audition during that period which Nikki Sixx denied on Twitter.
The other vocalists that are known to have auditioned are Stevie Rachelle from the band Tuff, Marq Torien from the band Bullet Boys and Stephen Shareaux from the band Kik Tracee.
Download “Illumination Theory”, “Behind The Veil” and “The Looking Glass”. “The Bigger Picture” also has some great musical sections. As for defining what Dream Theater is about right now; technical wizardry comes first and the actual song comes second.
The women of the world will love this album and the majority of guys will love the track “Conquistador.” A grand experiment in orchestra style theatrics merged with rock and pop sensibilities.
I just heard Cervello’s debut album (released in 2011) in 2013 and I liked it. I wanted to find out more information, only to find that they had broken up.
This album is more or less “B” grade Sevendust except for the last track “Sleeping Awake” which sounds like an “A” grade cut that should have been on Red’s “Release The Panic” album.
A brilliant hard rock covers album of pop songs. Songs that I originally dismissed as terrible suddenly have a new lease of life thanks to Within Temptation’s reinterpretation and Sharon’s wonderful voice.
I have had some music laying around that I earmarked once upon a time for a re-listen in a proper way.
“Burning Yesterday” was one such band.
Their album from 2009, “We Create Monsters Not Machines” was an amalgamation of bands like Red, Papa Roach, Breaking Benjamin, Skillet and Disciple. And I liked it, so give em a spin.
How can you pass up an album with “Stargazer” as its title?
Black Majesty is from Melbourne, Australia. The band is made up of John Cavaliere on vocals, Steve Janevski and Hanny Mohamed on guitars with Pavel Konvalinka on drums. There is no bassist listed.
Steve Janevski on guitar lists George Lynch, Zakk Wylde, John Sykes, Michael Wilton & Chris DeGarmo, Warren Demartini, Ronnie Letekro as his favourite guitarists. All great influences to have.
And apart from playing in Black Majesty (Power Melodic Metal), he also plays in Wicked Smile (Heavy Rock) and The Radio Sun (AOR Melodic Rock).
“Stargazer” was released in 2012.
Falling
The lead breaks are excellent. Steve Janevski and Hanny Mohamed showcase their abilities from the outset.
Lost Highway
Harmony guitars and fast double kick start the song off.
Voice Of Change
A killer Chorus and another killer lead break section. Actually killer lead breaks as there are a few.
Killing Hand
It has a “Paris Is Burning” riff to start off and I like it.
Check out the Chorus. Great vocal melodies, fast double kick and the guitars just play power chords.
As it’s becoming the norm, the lead breaks on this album are guitar hero moments.
Journey To The Soul
How good are the harmony guitars in the intro, before it moves into a Maiden like groove?
Holy Hillers
Another great harmony guitar intro.
Symphony Of Death
The slow Intro reminds of Queensryche circa first two albums and once the gallop riff starts, Helloween and Maiden come to mind.
But the lead breaks. Guitar hero stuff again.
It starts off with an open string harmony lick, then each guitarist gets a chance to shred and tap away before coming back to the open string harmonies to close the solo.
Edge Of The World
It’s blasting fast and loud.
And when it comes to instrumental section, Janevski and Mohamed don’t disappoint.
Stargazer
As soon as the Intro leads start, the song could have appeared on “Brave New World” and people would think Maiden wrote it.
The lead section part of the song is essential listening. it starts off with a sing-a-long harmony lead before it goes into individual solos. And man, what solos they are.
By the end of it, you can only press repeat.
If there is a criticism, the drums seem to be on cruise control with the stock fast double kick patterns Power Metal music is known for.
Steve Janevski and Hanny Mohamed deserve special mention here on guitars.
Vocalist John Cavaliere is a multi-octave vocalist. His voice and style ranges between David Coverdale, Bruce Dickinson, Geoff Tate and Michael Kiske but still sounding unique enough to be original.
I’m not a huge Power Metal fan but I do listen to bands that play that style purely for the guitar playing.
If you like Power Metal, you’ll like this. If you like Melodic Metal you’ll like this. If you like Heavy Metal, you’ll like this.
Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal/rock band from Stockholm, formed in 1989. The group has been through several personnel changes, including the replacement of every single original member. Lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth’s primary driving force since the departure of original vocalist David Isberg in 1992.
Opeth has consistently incorporated progressive, folk, blues, classical, and jazz influences into its usually lengthy compositions, as well as strong influences from death metal, especially in their early works.
The band rarely made live appearances supporting their first four albums, but since conducting their first world tour after the 2001 release of Blackwater Park, they have led several major world tours.
So “Morningrise” is part off the “first four” albums.
It’s the second one, released on 24 June 1996.
Opeth for this album is Mikael Åkerfeldt on vocals and guitars, Peter Lindgren on guitars, Johan De Farfalla on bass and Anders Nordin on drums, percussion. All lyrics are by Akerfeldt and music is by Akerfeldt and Lindgren.
Åkerfeldt has mentioned that “The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden and “Lick It Up” by Kiss made him a metal head, but he also was heavily influenced by “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” by Black Sabbath and his favorite metal album is “Sad Wings of Destiny” by Judas Priest.
Lindgren had a nice diet of Iron Maiden growing up and was heavily influenced by “Master of Puppets” from Metallica along with ’70s progressive rock band Camel.
So with similar influences as mine I was more than interested to listen.
I didn’t hear this album until 2005/06 as I started listening to em after “Blackwater Park”.
5 songs clocking in at 60 something minutes.
Advent
The song is almost 14 minutes long as it moves between sludgy grooves, acoustic guitars and fast double kick metal like passages.
Vocally, Opeth during this period was more death metal like with some clean vocal passages.
At 3.20, this acoustic guitar riff kicks in, arpeggio based and very Rush sounding and I’m like where did that come from.
It becomes abrasive again with death metal vocals which don’t impress but the music does impress.
At the 6 minute mark, a different acoustic arpeggio riff kicks in and this time, the vocals are in clean tone and I’m all in.
At 8 minutes a Thin Lizzy/Iron Maiden/Helloween like galloping riff kicks in which is great to play on the guitar.
But it gets better, there is this metallic riff at 9.20 which has a jazz like bass line behind it with double kick drums. It feels unsettling and jarring.
The Night And The Silent Water
At 11 minutes long, it’s another short song.
Im not a fan of the death metal vocals, but goddamn I really like the music and it’s movement between distortion and acoustic.
Around the 8 minute mark, this “Children Of The Grave” feel/gallop starts. It keeps building until the guitars explode into playing octave melodies.
Nectar
At 10 minutes long it’s maybe the shortest song on the album.
The music is very Iron Maiden”ish” like. There is this riff that kicks in at the 2 minute mark, which is excellent.
At 7 minutes there is another acoustic like arpeggio passage which comes out of nowhere and yet it fits nicely. And the last 90 seconds has a riff which appeared on a Dream Theater album in a few years’ time.
Black Rose Immortal
Almost 20 minutes long.
The song has a lot of harmony leads that feel like they are influenced by Thin Lizzy as it’s got that major key Celtic like vibe.
Check out the Maiden like instrumental sections from 7.30 and the excellent volume swell section around 9.30 to 9.43 which is way too short. But hypnotic and very violin line.
To Bid You Farwell
Another 11 minute song to close the album. A “Fade To Black” like arpeggio riff starts it off.
And the song percolates in the acoustic domain until it explodes into distortion at the 7 minute mark.
The amount of acoustic progressions in this song, another person could have written 10 different songs.
The vocals are clean tone and make sure you check out the bluesy kicks at the 4 minute mark.
And it returns back to the acoustics for the last 90 seconds to end the album on somber note. Like Empire Strikes Back.
Dream Theater broke through in 1992, it seemed that they just appeared overnight. Breaking through for Dream Theater still meant “obscurity from the mainstream” however with a “cult audience” that appreciated them.
And when they signed with Roadrunner in the 2000’s, a pile of money was thrown their way. Each new deal means a larger advance paid up front by the label which needs to be recouped in some way.
And for their self-titled release, Dream Theater partnered up with organizations that have nothing to do with their core audience like US Today and Grammy Awards websites as the first online sites to stream the new songs. Because the money they got needs to be recouped.
We are living in the era that is all about creativity. Artists need to be creating and releasing all the time, otherwise they are here today and gone tomorrow.
Metal bands have weathered the storm so far, as fans of these genre’s still tend to purchase albums, however the writing is on the wall. It’s about listens.
YNGWIE MALMSTEEN
The Fury was being clueless and talking about a music industry that didn’t exist because no one was buying his albums.
I was constantly listening to the Avenged Sevenfold “Hail To The King” album as it connected with me. I admit that the connection comes from the similarities of the songs on the new album to the bands that I grew up on.
Spotify streams for the song “Hail To The King” at this point in time was 1,884,995. Today, 8 years later, the song has 336,620,443 streams.
Shepherd Of Fire had 495,889 streams in 2013 and now 128,897,165.
Going back in time, I remember going to the record store with about $20 to $30 in my back pocket. I always looked forward to those days. It was what I lived for. However as exciting as the experience was, it always had to end with me deciding which albums to buy at that moment and which albums to buy next time around as I could never afford everything that I wanted.
With the rise of the CD, this only got more expensive.
When I used to purchase albums, money was the factor as to what I decided to purchase and listen too. Fast forward to now, time is the factor as to what I decide to listen too.
I was flicking through a Guitar World issue from 1995 that was talking about albums that came out in 1994.
I mentioned the magazines Top 10 and then provided my Top 10.
Motley Crue – Motley Crue
What can I say, Bob Rock killed it in the producer’s chair, capturing Motley Crue at their heaviest. It is groove rock, mixed with classic rock, mixed with heavy metal. Listen to the interludes of Droppin Like Flies and Hooligan’s Holiday for supreme Korn like heaviness.
Machine Head – Burn My Eyes
Robb Flynn’s vocal style is his life style. A lot of people have tried to imitate it however you have had to have lived his lifestyle in order to pull it off.
Leviathan – Deepest Secrets Beneath
A progressive metal band that deserves greater accolades. Think Geddy Lee vocals on a bed of technical metal riffs.
Dream Theater – Awake
Worthy follow up to “Images and Words” and the last album to feature the talents of Kevin Moore. Of course Jordan Rudess is a far more accomplished pianist, however to me Kevin Moore is a better band member, due to his lyrical and vocal melody writing.
Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
What else can be said about Pantera that hasn’t been said. They kept the flag flying for groove and thrash metal, while other leaders jumped ship or broke up.
Korn – Korn
Any album that has an ominous shadow of a man in a kids playground on the cover already has a lot to live up to. In this case, Korn delivered a brutal first album. Not bad for a band that got signed solely based on their demo and no live shows.
Savatage – Handful Of Rain
Dark and sorrowful. The best way to pay a tribute to a fallen brother is to keep the music alive. Savatage and especially Jon Oliva, did exactly that.
Megadeth – Youthanasia
Dave Mustaine and Megadeth never achieved the “success” in sales as Metallica however to me, they defined and pushed the boundaries of technical thrash metal. Can you ever imagine James Hetfield singing over the “Holy Wars” riff. With “Youthanasia”, Megadeth delivered a killer rock album, which if i had to pick between “Youthanasia” and “Load” from Metallica, “Youthansia” wins hands down.
Testament – Low
When a band is more or less written off by the press, that is when they deliver. However due to a lack of label support, the album didn’t get out of the gates properly.
Slayer – Divine Intervention
I was going to put Kyuss or Soundgarden here, however my loyalty to Slayer wins out in the end.
destroyerofharmony 